U.S. New Home Sales Fell Slightly in February
March 23 2018 - 10:30AM
Dow Jones News
By Sarah Chaney and Eric Morath
WASHINGTON--U.S. new-home sales dropped slightly in February,
continuing a trend of choppy sideways movement for a narrow segment
of the housing market.
Purchases of newly built single-family homes--a relatively small
slice of all U.S. home sales--decreased 0.6% from the prior month
to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 618,000 in February, the
Commerce Department said Friday. The sales pace was just below
620,000 annual rate expected by economists surveyed by The Wall
Street Journal.
The pace in January was revised up to a rate of 622,000, from an
earlier estimate of 593,000.
Data on new-home sales can be choppy from month to month, and
February's 0.6% decline came with a margin of error of 13.3
percentage points. More broadly, sales rose 0.5% through the 12
months ended in February.
Sales of new homes reached a postrecession high in November, but
have settled lower since and still remain well below the elevated
levels seen before the 2007-09 financial crisis and recession.
Friday's report showed some improvement for the supply of new
homes, which has been tight recently and contributed to a run-up in
home prices. At the current sales pace, there was a 5.9-month
supply of new homes on the market at the end of February, the
highest level since August and well above last February's 5.1-month
supply. The median sale price for a new home sold in February was
$326,800, up 9.7% from a year earlier.
Rising mortgage rates are adding to the affordability crunch.
The average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage climbed to
4.43% by the beginning of March from 3.95% at the start of January,
according to Freddie Mac. The average interest rate as of Thursday
stood at 4.45%. Borrowing costs still remain low by historical
standards.
Rising rates haven't yet deterred buyers of previously owned
U.S. homes, which account for the bulk of the market. Existing-home
sales rose a solid 3% last month, the National Association of
Realtors said Wednesday.
A copy of the full report is available at:
http://www.census.gov/construction/nrs.
Write to Sarah Chaney at sarah.chaney@wsj.com and Eric Morath at
eric.morath@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 23, 2018 10:15 ET (14:15 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.